23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale(89)

“You can try,” Caxton said.

Guilty Jen nodded, her pigtails swinging back and forth. “The other one is, I got your girlfriend. I know you’ll come out of there for her.” She shook her head when she saw Caxton peering into the shadows of the Hub. “Not here. But close by. I got people sitting on her, of course.”

Caxton sighed. “So… what now? I come out, and then we fight. If I lose, you kill me. And probably Clara too. If I win, you’ll let her go?”

“Nah.” Guilty Jen’s smile broadened. “If you win, and that doesn’t seem real likely, but let’s say I trip and crack my head open before I can even touch you—if you win, they got orders to kill her anyway.” The gangbanger shrugged. “That’s just how I roll.”





48.

She could jump over the counter and be through one of the

Hub’s many doors before Guilty Jen could catch her. She could find Clara somehow and overpower her guards. There’d be time for a quick hug, and then they would take down Malvern together and—

No. It wouldn’t work. She would never find Clara in time.

She had the hunting knife, which would work as well on Guilty Jen as it would on a half-dead. She could throw it, because Jen wouldn’t be expecting that. It was painted green, so it wouldn’t even glint as it sailed through the air. She could make sure it hit Jen somewhere painful but nonfatal, and then she could make the gangbanger tell her where Clara was being kept, and then—

Not a chance. Jen was too fast. She would hear the knife coming, or something.

There didn’t seem to be any way of saving Clara. There didn’t seem to be a real chance of surviving a fight with Guilty Jen. She’d tried that once already, back when she’d actually had a full belly and a night’s sleep. Jen was too fast, and her training in the martial arts just made her too deadly. Caxton was great at killing vampires. That took brains, determination, and high-tech guns. She knew next to nothing about unarmed combat against human opponents.

Across from her, still standing in the doorway of the machine-gun nest, Jen glanced at her wrist. She wasn’t wearing a watch, but Caxton understood the gesture. Nodding in resignation, she put one knee up on the counter. “I guess you know me pretty well,” Caxton said.

“I know your type,” Jen agreed.

Caxton slipped the hunting knife inside her stab-proof vest. Her best plan was to keep it hidden, then bring it out when Jen least expected it. She doubted it would work, but it was the only clever idea she had. “What type’s that?”

“The type that cares about people getting hurt. You’ll do just about anything if I threaten your girlfriend. You’d get down on your knees and lick my cunt right now if I said I’d spare her life, wouldn’t you?”

Caxton grunted as she grabbed the edge of the counter and hauled herself out of her hiding place. “Is that an offer?”

“No,” Guilty Jen said.

Caxton dropped to her feet on the far side of the counter. The burning trash can that was the Hub’s sole source of light was slightly to her left. She moved so that it was between her and the other woman.

“It’s a weakness. It’s something your enemies can exploit.” Jen tilted her head to one side. “So why do you let yourself feel that way?”

Caxton squinted at the gangbanger. Did she really need to ask that question? Maybe she did. Guilty Jen seemed to live in a world with a few very basic rules. Love and its obligations did not seem to be one of them. “I don’t think I can explain it very well. I guess you could say it’s what separates me from the monsters. I knew a guy once, my mentor. He didn’t care about people. He only cared about killing vampires. He was willing to use innocent people as cannon fodder. As diversions. Even as bait.” He’d used Caxton as vampire bait more than once. She had put up with it because she was learning from him every time he put her in danger. He was dead now. She wasn’t. “I swore I’d never be like that, that I would manage to have some kind of life besides just killing vampires. That meant having people like Clara, who—”

“Bored.” Guilty Jen sighed dramatically. “You want the first swing?”

Caxton smiled. She knew a trap when she heard one. “Let’s just wing it,” she said. She flicked her baton outward, extending it to its full length.

Jen bowed. And then she attacked.

She had to cover five yards of empty space before she could land a blow on Caxton. Those five yards included the burning trash can. She started to dodge left around it, signaling the move to force Caxton to dodge the other way and keep it between them. Caxton chose instead to roll to her right, closing the distance between them faster than Jen expected. She came out of her roll with her baton swinging upward, grip first. If she could shatter Jen’s kneecap straight out of the gate, this could be over very fast.